The state auditor has issued a report strongly criticizing the California Department of Water Resources, saying the agency has overestimated the state’s water supply during drought and continues relying on forecasts that don’t adequately factor in the effects of climate change.
The audit found that significant errors in runoff forecasts can cause problems for other water agencies. For example, it said that in 2021 the department’s overestimate of inflow into Folsom Lake meant that El Dorado Irrigation District “had to forego diverting water into storage that it would have otherwise been able to capture in its reservoir.”on record from 2020 through 2022, followed this year by heavy rain, snow and flooding.
The report said the agency “lacks a formal process for periodically evaluating certain State Water Project operations to identify opportunities for improvement.”Start to evaluate the accuracy of its monthly forecasts on an annual basis, including an assessment of whether actual runoff matched the range of scenarios.
Establish procedures to determine monthly and annual plans for operating the State Water Project, including the amount of water that will be held in dams and released.The Department of Water Resources disagreed with the report’s main findings. “DWR reacted quickly to the extreme hydrology and recognized the runoff forecasting error of 2021 as an opportunity to learn, adjust, and improve,” Nemeth said. “Conditions like those experienced in 2021 speak to the importance of forward-looking forecasting and developing new tools for an era of extremes.”, Nemeth said DWR established a climate change program in 2008 and has since released five updates of its climate plan.
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